Author Andrew Kreig to talk government secrets in Litchfield

LITCHFIELD>> Author and attorney Andrew Kreig is going to tell secrets of the federal government in his new book “Presidential Puppetry.” He will talk at the Rotary Club of Litchfield-Morris, and then the Oliver Wolcott Library on June 19.

An average American commits three felonies a day, Kreig cited from the book “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent” by Harvey Silverglate. The dysfunctional criminal justice system has exposed scores of people—doctors, lawyers, journalists, businesspeople—to sudden, arbitrary prosecution, according to the book. Kreig pointed out that the government surveillance program is a ticking time bomb, which will explode once a target is found.

The Washington D.C. based author said the abuses put innocent people in jail, and set guilty people free. Cyril H. Wecht, a forensic medical expert, was charged for sending 43 personal faxes that cost his county an estimated grand total of $3.86 in 2006. Wecht spent $8.6 million legal fees to fight off the charges. Kreig said as he examined the case, the indictment didn’t even include the word “fax,” but only calling it a wire fraud. He said Wecht was fortunate not to go to prison, but others were not.

“The surveillance problem is very serious,” Kreig said. “Reform will not come from congress. It has to come from the members of the public and grassroots, and understand this is not some vague issues. This can hurt them.”

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On the other hand, he said, government wrongdoings were being covered by the court. “In September 2008, the Bush Justice Department appointed career federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate allegations that Bush officials in 2006 illegally fired nine U.S. attorneys who wouldn’t politicize official corruption investigations. Four days before her appointment, a federal appeals court had ruled that a team of prosecutors led by Dannehy illegally suppressed evidence in a major political corruption case in Connecticut. The prosecutors’ misconduct was so serious that the court vacated seven of the eight convictions in the case,” Kreig wrote in Nieman Watchdog.

Kreig’s new book also examined the backgrounds of several recent presidents, and discovered their common close connection with the FBI and CIA prior to being elected. Kreig said these agencies helped the candidates advance in their political career. He said Reagan was an FBI secret informant for many years. He found out in a New York Times article in 1997 that President Obama worked for a CIA company after he graduated from Columbia University, and no one yet knows about it.

The biggest challenge to finish the book was to reach beyond the gatekeeper of information, Kreig said. He said Edward Snowden is both a hero and a criminal.

“[Snowden] broke the law, [but] he did so to uphold a view of the Constitution, and the Constitution is our fundamental law,” Kreig said. “The people who are violating the Constitution by these illegal searches—this is another arbitrary of the prosecution—nobody is talking about prosecuting them.”

Kreig worked at the Courant as a reporter from 1970 to 1984, and later wrote a monthly legal column for Connecticut Magazine in the mid-1980s. His talk will be at 7 p.m. June 19 in Oliver Wolcott Library.

About the Author

Shako Liu covers the towns of Litchfield, Warren, Goshen and Morris for The Register Citizen and Litchfield County Times. Reach the author at sliu@registercitizen.com
or follow Shako on Twitter: shako_liu.